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Title: Fermi-LAT Search for Pulsar Wind Nebulae around gamma-ray Pulsars

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal
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The high sensitivity of the Fermi-LAT (Large Area Telescope) offers the first opportunity to study faint and extended GeV sources such as pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). After one year of observation the LAT detected and identified three PWNe: the Crab Nebula, Vela-X, and the PWN inside MSH 15-52. In the meantime, the list of LAT detected pulsars increased steadily. These pulsars are characterized by high energy loss rates ($$\dot{E}$$) from ~3 × 1033 erg s–1 to 5 × 1038 erg s–1 and are therefore likely to power a PWN. This paper summarizes the search for PWNe in the off-pulse windows of 54 LAT-detected pulsars using 16 months of survey observations. Ten sources show significant emission, seven of these likely being of magnetospheric origin. The detection of significant emission in the off-pulse interval offers new constraints on the γ-ray emitting regions in pulsar magnetospheres. The three other sources with significant emission are the Crab Nebula, Vela-X, and a new PWN candidate associated with the LAT pulsar PSR J1023–5746, coincident with the TeV source HESS J1023–575. Here, we further explore the association between the HESS and the Fermi source by modeling its spectral energy distribution. Lastly, flux upper limits derived for the 44 remaining sources are used to provide new constraints on famous PWNe that have been detected at keV and/or TeV energies.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Contributing Organization:
The Fermi-LAT Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1357270
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 726, Issue 1; ISSN 0004-637X
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 55 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (22)

A spectroscopic investigation of early-type stars in the young open cluster Westerlund 2 journal October 2011
The X-ray light curve of the massive colliding wind Wolf-Rayet + O binary WR 21a journal May 2016
The H.E.S.S. Galactic plane survey journal April 2018
The two tails of PSR J2055+2539 as seen by Chandra : Analysis of the nebular morphology and pulsar proper motion journal April 2019
THE DISTANCE TO THE MASSIVE GALACTIC CLUSTER WESTERLUND 2 FROM A SPECTROSCOPIC AND HST PHOTOMETRIC STUDY , , journal March 2013
Time-Dependent Modeling of Pulsar wind Nebulae journal August 2013
THE SECOND FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE CATALOG OF GAMMA-RAY PULSARS journal September 2013
Properties of young pulsar wind nebulae: TeV detectability and pulsar properties journal January 2013
X-ray studies of the gamma-ray pulsar J1826−1256 and its pulsar wind nebula with Chandra and XMM–Newton journal June 2019
Outflow and Emission Model of Pulsar Wind Nebulae with the Back Reaction of Particle Diffusion journal November 2018
Fermi Large Area Telescope Fourth Source Catalog journal March 2020
The Second Fermi Large area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-Ray Pulsars text January 2013
The H.E.S.S. Galactic plane survey text January 2018
Fermi Large Area Telescope Fourth Source Catalog text January 2020
Fermi Large Area Telescope Fourth Source Catalog collection January 2020
A spectroscopic investigation of early-type stars in the young open cluster Westerlund 2 text January 2011
Search for Dark Matter Satellites using the FERMI-LAT text January 2012
Time-dependent Modeling of Pulsar Wind Nebulae text January 2013
NuSTAR study of Hard X-Ray Morphology and Spectroscopy of PWN G21.5-0.9 text January 2014
HAWC Observations Strongly Favor Pulsar Interpretations of the Cosmic-Ray Positron Excess text January 2017
Outflow and Emission Model of Pulsar Wind Nebulae with the Back-reaction of Particle Diffusion text January 2018
X-ray studies of the gamma-ray pulsar J1826-1256 and its pulsar wind nebula with Chandra and XMM-Newton text January 2019

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